DrownJunot Diaz

Junot DiazJunot Diaz was born in Santa Domingo,

Dominican RepublicCame to the United States in December 1974

and lived in Parlin, New JerseyIs a Professor of creative writing at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology.Became the First Latino to be appointed to

the Pulitzer Prize board of Jurorshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq0hytHV8

o4

Opening quoteThe fact that Iam writing to you in Englishalready falsifies what Iwanted to tell you.My subject:how to explain to you that Idon’t belong to Englishthough I belong nowhere else

Gustavo Perez Firmat

YsraelCharacters:Yunior- the whole book is from his

perspective. In this story he is nine years old, still in the Dominican Republic

Rafa- Yunior’s older brotherTio- When times get hard, Mami sends the

boys to live with their uncle in el campoAbsent father- Living and working in the USYsrael- A boy whose face was eaten off by a

pig when he was a baby

YsraelRafa and Yunior are in el campo with their

uncle for the summerRafa keeps talking about Ysrael. He is

obsessed with getting a look at Ysrael’s face.Finally one day they take a bus to Ysrael’s

neighborhoodRafa knocks him out and looks at his face

YsraelIdentity

Ysrael’s face = loss of identityRafa is obsessed with getting a look

MasculinityYunior looks for validation from his older brother

Always listens to Rafa’s stories Thrilled when Rafa brings him along Likes going to el campo because he and Rafa are friends there

“Pato” on the bus Yunior tells the man to leave him alone When they get off the bus, he starts to cry Rafa calls him a pussy, tells him he needs to get tougher

Yunior is more sensitive than Rafa Acts like he wants to be Ysrael’s friend Doesn’t really want to look at his face When Tia told them that seeing Ysrael’s face would make you

feel sad forever, Yunior didn’t want to feel sad forever.

Fiesta, 1980CharactersTia Yrma – Yuniors Aunt, recently moved into

the bronx with Tio MiguelPuerto Rican Woman- having an affair with

Yunior’s father, Rafa also knows about herYunior’s Dad – Tough and abusive, is having

an affair, always yelling at Yunior

Fiesta, 1980Tia Yrma and Tio Miguel move to the U.S.

and are living in the Bronx off Grand Concourse

Everybody decides to have a party for their arrival

Yunior gets car sick a lot so his dad refuses to let him eat at the party.

While at the party he thinks back on the time he met the Puerto Rican woman.

He thinks about his mom and whether or not she knows

Fiesta, 1980Masculinity and SexualityYunior gets his ideas of masculinity from His brother, father

and Uncle

• Yunior hears from his uncle that if he were in the Dominican Republic he would be drinking already and would have even gotten laid already.

• Rafa makes Yunior stand guard at the party while his brother is with Leti

• His dad is having an affair with another woman and brings Yunior to her house while he goes upstairs with her

• Yunior is always getting yelled at and punished by his father, he even writes a school essay called My Father The Torturer

AuroraCharacters:Yunior- Living in the USCut- Yunior’s friend and drug-dealing partnerAurora- A junkie that Yunior is involved with

AuroraYunior and his friend Cut go to pick up more drugsThat night Aurora comes by their apartmentYunior spends the night with her, but when he wakes

up he finds that she went through his pockets and left.Yunior and Cut go out and deal drugsYunior and Aurora abuse each other, but they can’t

seem to stay away from each otherYunior goes to hang out with his friendsHints that Aurora had a baby, but remains unclearAurora went to juvie. Yunior didn’t write to her. They

got back together when she got out.

AuroraDisorientation/Confusion:“I’ve found these notes… Bullshit mostly but

every now and then she leaves one that makes me want to treat her better” p. 48

“We all do shit like this, stuff that’s no good for you. You do it and then there’s no feeling positive about it afterwards” p. 50

“After, when she’s picking at my back and the others in the next room have started talking again, I’m amazed at how nasty I feel, how I want to put my fist in her face” p. 55

AuroraDisorientation/Confusion:“We’re all under the big streetlamps, everyone’s the

color of day-old piss. When I’m fifty this is how I’ll remember my friends: tired and yellow and drunk” p. 57

“If something inside of me is saying no, why do I say, Yeah, sure?” p. 59

“I’m thinking how easy it would be for her to turn around and say, Hey, let’s go home. I’d put my arm around her and I wouldn’t let her go for like fifty years, maybe not ever. I know people who just quit like that, who wake up one day with bad breath and say, No more. I’ve had enough” p.61

AuroraDisorientation/Confusion:“A week from then she would be asking me

again, begging actually, telling me all the good things we’d do and after a while I hit her and made the blood come out of her ear like a worm but right then, in that apartment, we seemed like we were normal folks. Like maybe everything was fine” p. 65

AguantandoYunior – only nine years oldAbuelo – Lives in the house helps take care of

the kidsRafa – older brotherTía Miranda –Yunior’s Madrina (Godmother.

He only stays with her when times get harder and his mom doesn’t have anymore money

AguantandoYunior talks about the times he grew up in

DR with out his father present and how poor they were.

Mom worked ten 12-hour shifts to support them.

Abuelo helped take care of them but didn’t actually work for money.

They lived in a small house with a leaky roof and the only thing that was kept safe was the pictures of his dad in a plastic bag.

Yunior had never met his father before.

AguantandoHis father usually writes letters to the family

and recently wrote to tell them he was coming back. This gets his mom in such a bad mood because his father said that once before and never showed up.

He describes how she changed following that and went away for 5 weeks

When she came back she was a new person brighter and happier

He only knows of his father by the things his mother tells him such as how they met.

AguantandoThis is basically about Yunior wanting to

know his father and how his absence effects them.

He see how much his mother is hurt by it but still wants to know his father. He even throws a tantrum until his mother can’t take it anymore.

DrownCharacters:Yunior- Living in the US with only his mother

nowMother- Quiet and lost, misses Yunior’s fatherBeto- Yunior’s old friendAlex and Danny- The guys Yunior drinks with

at nightRecruiter- Tries to recruit Yunior for the

ArmyFather- Only present in flash-backs and when

Yunior’s mother talks to him on the phone. Lives in Florida now with another woman

DrownMother tells Yunior that Beto is back and wants to see himBeto left for college and Yunior stayed behindYunior goes to the pool in the middle of the night, half-

expecting to see Beto thereMother doesn’t understand why Yunior and Beto don’t

hang out anymoreYunior takes his mother to the mall. It’s one of the only

times she leaves the apartmentYunior and Beto used to shoplift togetherArmy recruiter once tried to recruit YuniorYunior skipped out of school a lotBeto and Yunior had two homosexual encounters

Drown“The water feels good. Starting at the deep end I glide

over the slick-tiled bottom without kicking up a spume or making a splash. Sometimes another swimmer churns past me, more a disturbance of water than a body. I can still go far without coming up. While everything above is loud and bright, everything below is whispers” p. 93

“I take to the bushes when I see his car on the road. These days my guts feel loose and cold and I want to be away from here. He won’t have to show me his Desert Eagle or flash the photos of the skinny Filipino girls sucking dick. He’ll only have to smile and name the places and I’ll listen” p. 101

Drown“Sometimes Alex will stop by the side of the road and

say, Excuse me. When somebody comes over from the bar he’ll point his plastic pistol at them, just to see if they’ll run or shit their pants. Tonight he just puts his head out the window. Fuck you! he shouts and then settles back in his seat, laughing” p. 103 masculinity, homophobia

“We sat in front of his television, in our towels, his hands bracing against my abdomen and thighs. I’ll stop if you want, he said and I didn’t respond. After I was done, he laid his head in my lap. I wasn’t asleep or awake, but caught somewhere in between, rocked slowly back and forth by the way surf holds junk against the shore, rolling it over and over” p. 105

Drown“I thought of how in high school our teachers

loved to crowd us into their lounge every time a space shuttle took off from Florida. One teacher, whose family had two grammar schools named after it, compared us to the shuttles. A few of you are going to make it. Those are the orbiters. But the majority of you are just going to burn out. Going nowhere. He dropped his hand onto the desk. I could already see myself losing altitude, fading, the earth spread out beneath me, hard and bright” p. 106

DrowningThe book jumps around from one period to

another within Yunior’s lifeThings are often undefined; some stories

barely even have a plot